


Downriver

by Lady_Bluebird



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Gen, Nonbinary Hange Zoë, Spoilers, post-chapter 115
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2020-03-06 03:56:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18843127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Bluebird/pseuds/Lady_Bluebird
Summary: It's not the first time Hange and Levi have had the odds stacked against them, but this is the worst it's ever been.





	Downriver

**Author's Note:**

> i got impatient waiting to hear about Hange and her bff so I wrote something about them. This is kind of spur-of-the-moment, so I apologize for any mistakes.

Levi’s already heavy when he can move himself. Limp and soaking wet in the tumble of the river, Hange can barely both hold onto him and fight against the current. Their mind races with a calculated evaluation of the situation: Levi and they have nowhere to go. Exiled from Paradise, Hange’s capacity to give their best friend emergency care is crippled. Hange doesn’t think that Floch will come after them. They're just scum now, after all, and the Jaeger brothers probably believe whatever plan they have will take care of them as soon as its implemented. Zeke is smart, and Eren is increasingly worrying, but even though the younger shifter knows how dangerous Hange can be, and both Eren and Zeke are very much aware of the danger Levi poses, the two of them are insects. Not worth trying to hunt down in the island’s dense forests. They’re left for dead, and Hange can’t say it’s an improbable prediction. 

Hange doesn’t know how far they and Levi drift along. They don’t hear horses, so they probably aren’t being chased. But they’ll have to get away from the river as quickly as possible. Otherwise, if anyone chases them, the pair will only have to follow the river to find them. Hange grits their teeth and tries to push away the nagging cold. This is bad, very bad. ( _“No shit, dumbass”_ Levi would say if he could. _“What’s new?”_ ). 

In the quiet moments late at night, siting in the commander’s study, Levi has a look in his eyes that’s become more pronounced recently. If a feral dog, backed into a corner and bleeding out, was personified, they would look something like the captain. Hauling the two of them out of the river, Hange understands where that feeling comes from. They need dry clothes, which they don’t have, food, which they don’t have, and sleep, which they might not be able to afford. Hange needs to find a safe place to evaluate and treat Levi’s wounds as best as they can. they try to slow down their thoughts, to be pragmatic. It doesn’t matter if they die out here or not, so they may as well try to survive. 

There’s no way to be subtle about the path they make through the woods. Any half-decent tracker will see the scuffed leaf litter and broken branches that Hange leaves behind as she tries to carry her best friend through the vegetation. After an agonizingly long time, when their arms and back scream in protest against the slumped weight on their back and their legs feel like rubber, Hange stops. Their exhaustion is bone-deep. If anyone finds them where they are now, so be it. Neither of them can put up much of a fight. 

Finally, bracing themselves, the scientist evaluates the captain’s wounds. There isn’t much good news. Levi is alive, and some of his cuts are surface scratches from shrapnel. But he might not be alive for long, and most of his injuries may not be salvageable. The gash across his face rent one of his eyes open. He’s missing two fingers, and Hange is neither going to try to retrieve them, nor sure an attempted reattachment would be successful this long after the injury. Levi lost a lot of blood. There’s nothing they can do to sew anything together, and Hange sure as hell won’t attempt a blood transfusion. Hange can’t even begin to imagine what sort of internal injuries the soldier has. The most immediate threat is infection. Thankfully, there might be something Hange can do about that. 

The survey corps ponchos are watertight. Hange leaves Levi and tries to retrace their steps from the river. They don’t want to leave the captain unattended. Something might try to carry him off, or he might die – Hange has to accept that reality – alone in the woods. But Hange also doesn’t have a choice. They manage to scoop some water from the river into the poncho, and to not spill that much on the return. Finding a dip in some stones to store the water without spilling it, they make a fire. It's long, tedious work without matches, but they have their glasses and some tufts of feathery, rubbed-soft bark to ignite. For a while, Hange fears the sparks won’t catch, but they soon have a small fire going. 

´Hange boils the water as best they can without setting the poncho on fire, reduced to holding the makeshift bowl as far away from the fire as they can while still heating the water enough to bring it to a boil. It’s long work, and Hange thinks fleetingly that it’s the sort of thing Shardis would use to punish new recruits for being too mouthy. The thought makes Hange ache. The old teacher is beaten bloody now, if he survived the ordeal. A snide comment about karma comes to mind, but Shardis doesn’t deserve what Eren’s survey corps did to him. 

It’s a blessing that Levi is unconscious when Hange washes his wounds out with the boiled water. They check his pulse periodically. It’s noticeable, but stuttering. Hange washes his wounds again. Then a third time, like a tired ritual, to prevent catching infection in the wound when they do what they do next. The commander hopes they aren’t washing a corpse. 

Hange’s never treated injuries this serious in the field. Usually, injuries like Levi’s would be a death sentence. The brunet feels a wash of relief knowing there aren’t any titans left roaming around the island. Not the mindless ones, anyways. But this field treatment is a joke. The only metal Hange has to cauterize Levi’s wounds is a scrap of shrapnel from one of his cuts. They almost burn their fingers heating it, and fumble it with makeshift wooden tongs. The smell of burned flesh and hair turns their stomach, both sickeningly and insistently. They haven’t eaten in a while. 

Flesh hisses. Levi’s definitely going to lose the eye. 

Work done, Hange sits back and watches their friend. He's alive, and they’ve done what they can. The full extent of his injuries remains unknown. Hange can’t know if he’s bleeding internally, or what kind of organ damage the thunder spears inevitably caused. The final diagnosis is undetermined, the prognosis poor. Levi is strong, the strongest – but he also doesn’t have a titan’s healing abilities, and he endured massive trauma. Hange doesn’t know if any human, Ackerman or not, can come back from something like this. 

There’s no good reason this should have happened. It’s not a new thought – that's just war – but Hange feels cheated. Death’s lottery feels once again unfair, the house about to win another time. They don’t know what they’ll do if Levi doesn’t pull through. It’s bad enough to be usurped by a teenage mass-murderer surrounded by zealots and warmongers, but this is adding insult to injury. 

The commander glances down at Levi’s sleeping features, the slightest rise and fall of his chest. Hange feeds the fire. They scan the darkening edges of the clearing for any plants that look edible. There are a few that might be, and likely more options deeper in the woods. They look up at the pieces of night sky peaking between the treetops. Their neck and back are sore from crouching for so long, but the commander settles in to keep watch in the long night.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [ Tumblr ](http://www.lady-bluebird-luv.tumblr.com/).


End file.
